Caged

Thank you all for you kind words about Russell. It really is the hardest part of owning pets  - they never live long enough. But he had 14 good spoiled years and I'm thankful for that.. So now we give our living fur babies a big snuggle and turn our attention back to life at hand ... and head back out to the garden.

One of my other weekend plans, beside jamming and working on Lestrange, was to get my poor tomatoes staked up. They were starting to look rather wild and if I didn't do something soon, they'd probably start to die

(Not to mention that garden needed a good weeding.) While I was up at Mom's I mentioned that I needed to get them staked (I used bamboo stake last year) and Dad offered up two tomato cages he wasn't using this  year.

I already had a smaller cage that was perfect for one of the smaller tomato plants (and that little mini one is still mini - though quite healthy - no cage needed) and Dad's two cages were the perfect size for the larger plants. They look much happier now - if a bit wilty. But the sun was hot, so I gave them a nice long drink and they perked right back up. I've even got little green tomatoes on them already.

Verdict is still out on how well the Jalapenos are faring. They haven't gotten much bigger, but they seem healthy.

The strawberries are rocking though - nice big leaves, and I'm just starting to get some flowers.  

Another month or so and I should have some berries.

And over in the bee garden

I have some very strange looking sunflowers. The pack of seeds was mixed... any idea what kind this could be?

Oh and the mini sunflower bloomed

 But apparently it's still at perfect nibbling height....